Melly G. Tan will never forget the turbulent years she spent studying at the University of California in Berkeley, where she was the only Indonesian at the university's sociology department.
MELLY G. TAN: (JP/Ary Hermawan)
She was there from 1963 to 1968, during which great historical events took place in the United States and Indonesia.
"I was in my apartment getting ready for the first test of my first semester. Suddenly, the music on the radio stopped and there was an announcement that Kennedy had been shot," she said.
"I left my apartment to look for people, but there was no one in the building. I tried to call on the phone, but kept getting a busy signal. It was a frightening sensation, waiting to reach out to people and being unable to communicate with anyone.
"I was struck with the truth that we are indeed social beings,&quot...